Chairman Rep. Cole Hefner takes initiative to ban foreign land owners

TYLER, Texas (KETK) — An East Texas Representative is taking the initiative in the Texas House to limit “hostile foreign organizations” from owning land and assets in the state.

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Rep. Cole Hefner, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from Mount Pleasant, is the chairman for the newly formed House Select Committee on Securing Texas from Hostile Foreign Organizations.

The committee, composed by five Republicans, including Hefner and two Democrats, met for the first time last week where Hefner said they discussed the main goal “to ban the Chinese Communist Party and other adversaries from owning land in Texas.”

“What we don’t want is… adversaries to take control of too much of that property and then bosses back home tell them we are not going to produce that food, we are not going to harvest that timber and that puts us in a bind. So working through this, doing it the right way, is important,” Hefner said during the committee meeting.

According to the Foreign Holdings of U.S. Agricultural Land, foreign entities reported holding an interest in approximately 40 million agricultural acres in the U.S. as of December 31, 2021. Of that, Chinese entities own less than 1% of all foreign-held land in the U.S around 384,000 acres. In Texas, Chinese entities own about 162,000 acres.

The largest foreign land owners in the U.S. are from Canada (31%) and Netherlands (12%).

Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, found how much East Texas land is owned by foreigners.

• Polk County is about 49.68% foreign-owned

• Cherokee County is about 13.34% foreign-owned

• Panola County is about 14.21% foreign-owned

• Smith County is about .39% foreign-owned

• Gregg County is about .66% foreign-owned

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Tyler County was found to be 59.66% foreign owned by people from Canada, Netherlands, Sweden and Germany, the largest amount owned by foreigners in Texas.

As the chairman, Hefner said they will also focus on studying the threat posed by hostile foreign organizations to the Texas economy, security and values. They will also evaluate the ways foreign organizations acquire property including the “attendant risks.”

The committee will also recommend policy changes “to mitigate the risks posed by ownership of Texas assets,” examine rates of intellectual property theft and identify industries impacted.

“We’re just looking into what threats we face as a state, what the feds are not doing and what the state can step in and do,” Hefner said.

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